


Homecoming

by allonym



Series: Doctor Who Series 6 Ficlets [7]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s06e10 The Girl Who Waited, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 01:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17519627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonym/pseuds/allonym
Summary: In the end they took her with them.    *Spoilers* forThe Girl Who Waited





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this is not AU, but rather the original timeline Amy experienced in the Two Streams facility, which older!Amy remembers happening to her older self when she was still young, before she changed her future. (And if you understood that sentence, then congratulations, you are a true Doctor Who fanatic).

In the end they took her with them. Must’ve felt they had to, even if she wasn’t _their_ Amy. She thought about insisting Rory come, too — Rory the robot, that is. Not _him_. Anyway, that’d be foolish. He was just a machine. She didn’t look at his stupid painted-on face when she disconnected his power source, and left him with the rest of rubbish.  
  
“So, welcome back, Amelia Pond!” cried the Doctor as she trudged into the TARDIS.  
  
A lying smile on his face. Still trying to dazzle her with his sleight-of-hand. She had 36 years to think of how it did it, how he pulled her into his madness with a sprinkle of stardust and whimsy, and then left her to survive best she could. Again and again he’d done it. Left her to the psychiatrists, to the Angels in the dark, to the vampires, to the Silurians, to the embrace of the Pandorica, to the Silents, and finally to the tender ministrations of the child-stealers. Each time she forgave him, believed that he had really fixed things. No more. Now she knew she could depend on no one but herself.  
  
“Like I told this one,” said Amy, nodding over at Rory, “I’m a woman with a sword. Best watch your step, Raggedy Man.”  
  
His smile didn’t falter. It wouldn’t. She was his enemy now. He always smiled at his enemies. “Yes, quite. Well, I need to. . .go check on a few things before we can travel. Near-miss paradoxes always give the TARDIS a bit of tummy trouble. You two can have a chat while I’m gone if you like.” He disappeared down a corridor before she could say anything. Not that there was much left to say, now.  
  
“Amy. . .” said Rory softly.  
  
She flicked her eyes towards him, and looked away. It was hard to look at him. She kept seeing his face when she broke the time glass linking them to her earlier self.  
  
Her younger self had looked so beautiful, even with a pink nose from crying. “Why are we still here?” young Amy had asked, still sniffling.  
  
“Because the Doctor was late. Again,” she’d answered. She didn’t remember having this conversation when she was the one stuck. It infuriated her that the Doctor was now trying to rub her out like a stray pencil mark, just because he didn’t want to feel more guilt.  
  
“But he can fix it, yeah? He can switch time streams and get me.” The younger woman’s confidence in the Doctor made her stomach clench.  
  
“He could, if I helped him,” she said. “But I’m not going to.”  
  
“Why not?” her younger self asked.  
  
“Because, little girl, you have an important lesson to learn,” she had said grimly, and grabbed the time glass from Rory’s hands.  
  
“No!” he’d shouted, but it was too late. She flung the glass as hard as she could onto a pile of scrap, and it shattered.  
  
The look on Rory's face had made _her_ feel shattered. She’d forgotten just how much he loved her. The younger her, that is. Not the dried up old woman standing in front of him. For a moment, she wished she could take it back, and return his Amy to him. It wasn’t his fault the Doctor was a liar. She was the one who dragged him into all this.  
  
Nevermind. No room for regrets.  
  
“Are you leaving, then?” she had asked Rory, looking anywhere but at him, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other.  
  
His voice was like steel. “I’m not leaving you, Amy. Not ever. Let’s get back to the TARDIS. Is there anything you want to take with you?”  
  
She had looked straight at him, or rather at his glasses. “You hear that, Doctor? Rory thinks I’m coming back to the TARDIS. What do you say to that?”  
  
“Well of course you’re coming back to the TARDIS,” he had said jovially. “Unless you’d like to extend your holiday a bit longer?”  
  
Very funny. Now she was back in the TARDIS. It had been so long since she’d seen something different. The Two Streams complex was enormous, but after 36 years she’d learned every inch several times over.  
  
“Amy?” said Rory again, and she realized she’d just been standing there in the console room, staring at nothing, lost in memory. Habit. She would need to make some new habits, new schedules. The idea was unsettling.  
  
“Rory?” she parroted, looking at him, and then away again. He took a step towards her, and she tensed.  
  
“How are you. . . are you hungry?” he asked.  
  
Hungry. Yes, maybe she was hungry. It has been almost 12 years since she last felt hungry.  
  
“I could fix you my universe-famous bangers and mash? Assuming I can convince the TARDIS to produce something resembling sausages,” he continued in a soft tone.  
  
“No!” she said. It would be easy, too easy, to go with Rory to the kitchen. Let him feed her. Knowing that every minute he was wishing a younger woman was standing there.  
  
“No,” she repeated more calmly. “I don’t want to eat. I want to leave. Where is that bloody stupid alien, anyway?”  
  
“Right here,” said the Doctor from behind her. She spun around, hand going for her sword. He shouldn’t have been able to sneak up like that. She was letting herself get distracted. Fatal error.  
  
“Are you done fussing over the TARDIS? I need to get out of here,” she said, dropping her hand.  
  
“Where would you like to go?” he asked. Smiling, of course. That foolish smile of his that could cover any number of tricks and traps.  
  
“Earth. 2011. Home, or as close as I can get,” she said firmly.  
  
“Amy. . .you can’t just step back into your old life, now,” he said gently.  
  
Rory’s voice interrupted before she could respond. “Give her what she wants, Doctor.” He sounded hard, not like himself at all. The two men stared at each other for a very long moment, and then the Doctor twirled in place, facing the console.  
  
“Very well. Earth 2011 it is,” he said, hands dancing across the controls. With a lurch they were off.  
  
They landed with barely a bump, which made Amy think that the TARDIS was eager to get rid of her. She strode through the doors without a backward glance.  
  
They were next to some trees at the end of a cornfield — maybe even the same one they’d written the Doctor’s name in, a lifetime ago. She couldn’t tell from this angle. The sun was out, and it was so beautiful. It felt like her eyes were opening for the first time, seeing the world in the light she was born to. And the smell — Earth smell, no other planet like it. She was home. Sort of.  
  
Rory had followed her out. The Doctor hadn’t. She glared at the man who had once been her husband.  
  
“Get back inside!” she said. “I can do fine on my own.”  
  
“I told you, I’m not leaving you, Amy. Not now. Not ever.” He spoke very calmly, but his voice was firm.  
  
“Yes. You. Are,” she said. “You don’t want me. I saw it. You wanted her. “  
  
“I do want you, Amy. I will always want you. It’s true, I wanted you to have never have suffered, never have waited, never had been alone. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you. _This_ you.”  
  
She looked at his face, his beautiful face, and knew he was telling the truth. Or at least he thought he was telling the truth. But it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last. He couldn’t be happy with a woman who’d be mistaken for his mother. And she couldn’t be happy like that either.  
  
“But I don’t want you,” she said, and felt a pang when he winced. She softened her voice. “Rory, I’m sorry, but it hurts to look at you, it hurts so bad to see you so young. Knowing I’ve taken away your future with me. Every minute, every second is like broken glass. Is that what you want for me?”  
  
He searched her face. Her old, tired face. “No, of course not. But what will you do?”  
  
She snorted. “I survived 36 years of hell. Pretty sure I can make do on my home planet.”  
  
He studied her for a minute more, and then looked around, frowning at the trees behind her. Then his face cleared. “Well, okay, if you’re certain.”  
  
Of course she was certain. She just nodded and then pointed her chin at the TARDIS. He ignored her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. She just stood there stiffly.  
  
“Go on, then,” she said when he finally released her.  
  
“Okay — but if you change your mind, you know how to reach me. I still have my mobile.”  
  
Yeah, right. As if she’d ever. Anyway, her own mobile had been sacrificed long ago to help build her sonic probe. But if it would make him leave. . .”Of course.”  
  
And then he turned and went into the TARDIS. Huh. Easier than she thought it would be. She turned her back on the blue box that she once considered home, and did not look around when it start to dematerialize. And if there was a bit of water in her eyes, well, the sun was very bright today.  
  
After she blinked away the moisture, she looked around, trying to find a path to a road. Something moved under the trees and she pulled out her sword. A man walked out of the shadows, and then halted when the point of her sword touched his throat. His hands were in the air. A ring glinted on the left one.  
  
“I come in peace,” he said, in a very familiar voice. A voice roughened by age.  
  
She stared at him in disbelief. His features had coarsened, his hair had receded, and he was more stooped than ever. But there was no mistaking him.  
  
“Rory?” she asked.  
  
“Hello!” he said, with his special smile, pushing down the point of her sword.  
  
“But how. . .where did you come from?” she asked, sheathing her weapon.  
  
“I was here the whole time. Waiting for the TARDIS to go.”  
  
“But how?” she asked, drinking in the sight of him. He looked so wonderfully ordinary.  
  
“Easy. I just asked the Doctor to drop me off in 1975, and then waited for you to arrive,” he said, smiling smugly.  
  
“You’ve been waiting for 36 years?! That’s daft!”  
  
“I figured it was the least I could do. You didn’t really think I’d ever leave you alone, did you?”  
  
He held his arms open for her, and she took a deep shuddering breath before going to him. His arms were strong around her and she buried her face into his chest.  
  
“You stupid, stupid man. How could you do that? I never asked you to do that.” She thunked her forehead against him.  
  
“You didn’t have to. You’re Amy Pond. I’d wait forever for you if I had to,” he said, bending his neck to kiss her.  
  
For a moment, she stiffened, but then something inside finally gave and she relaxed into his kiss. Rory, Rory, Rory, her heart sang. This Rory was her Rory. To have and hold. Hers.  
  
He finally pulled back, smiling down at her. “Alright the, let’s go home. I have a little cottage for us, I think you’ll like it.”  
  
Home. She liked the sound of that.  
  
_Where thou art, that is home. - Emily Dickinson_

* * *


End file.
